For instance, her “And Then There Were None” is near the top of the list of best selling books of all time. It was originally titled “Ten Little Niggers” and was also published for a while as “Ten Little Indians”.
Probably her best book, BTW.
Great, now I’m imagining H.* Ross Perot as a detective.
*H for “Hercule,” of course.
I read them at that age and loved them. There’s nothing explicit in them. I enjoyed them all, but especially like the ones with Tommy and Tuppence.
If she likes mysteries I’d also recommend the Roman Mystery series written by Caroline Lawrence, a series of books set in ancient Rome where a group of young friends solve mysteries, very popular with my 10 - 13 year old readers.
Drugs are mentioned now and again, by name even. I a very minor character in “Styles” was addicted to cokaine. Nothing inapropriate for a ten-year-old.
I loved Poirot and Miss Marple at that age!
I was also quite fond of the Amelia Peabody books by Elizabeth Peters- about a late Victorian lady Egyptologist and amateur detective. Harmless stuff, nothing too violent or racy- Indiana Jones type stuff really. I haven’t read all of the books, but the first few were diverting enough without anything a reasonable parent would object to.
Grown-up here. I tried these, and found them too full of torture and physical abuse, especially of the child characters, for my taste.
I think that the problem with Christie, and a lot of books written for adults, would be less references unsuitable for kid sensibilities than kid lack of cultural context. This is especially a consideration for books set in foreign countries or written many decades ago.
If your daughter is ready to move from the Juvenile to the Young Adult booklists, science fiction has a much more extensive literature than mystery.
Narnia & Lion/Witch/Wardrobe are on the list of books that I read to them at night. She’s also into dragons and reads several dragon series. She has a pretty healthy and diverse lineup of reading materials; we don’t necessarily feel the need to expand her horizons that way. I just heard something about Christie on the radio this morning and thought, “hm. I bet Daughter would enjoy those novels, but I don’t know if they contain anything she’s not ready for. Mayhaps I’ll consult my associates on the interwebs for their opinion.”
We don’t. She can read whatever or whomever she wants, subject to our approval (age-appropriate or otherwise, but author gender is not a criterion for our veto).
One of my all time favorites with H. Poirot is A.B.C. Murders. About a serial killer that starts with A. and keeps going. All the while taunting H. Poirot that he can’t catch him. Chief Inspector Japp is also in this one.
A.B.C. Murders was written in 1936. As others said, the best stories were written prior to about 1955.
H. Poirot was my favorite character. I think most guys prefer him. Miss Marple dealt more with gossip and her tiny village for murder clues. I like a few of the Miss Marples too. I suspect woman/teen girls probably like her more than H. Poirot.
Ellery Queen is another mystery writer I recommend for teens.
“HASTINGS! Ah’m all ears!”
I got a good deal on an Agatha Christie collection on my nook. I paid two or three bucks for several novels and short stories.
Of the stories I’ve read, I’d classify them as “G”. Yes, there are references to sex out of wedlock, and babies out of wedlock too, but by today’s standards, that’s nothing. There’s racism and sexism and classism galore, but I think that MAYBE there are a couple of onstage kisses. I’d have to go back and re-read the whole thing.
Anyway, I’d say that you do need to talk to her about how people back then had some notions about sex and race and class. And the language and situations might be a bit confusing to her, but she might really enjoy these stories. Also, about that age, I was fascinated with the original Sherlock Holmes stories, which also had a lot of sexism, racism, and classism.
This is an interesting view and parents may want to look the books over before their children read them.
I’d have to say though, in 8 years of recommending, lending and reading these books to students neither the teachers at our school or I have had any child or parent mention this aspect.
Sorry for the hijack.
Indeed! But both the class injustice and the stereotyping are not reasons not to read the books, instead, they can be used as great starting points to teach a ten-year old about a class society and make her think about how times have changed. The educational thing in Christie’s novels is that the class inequality is so deeply ingrained, so natural, and yet so innocent. It is not about a mean capitalist in a high hat starving little children in gloomy factories; it is about Miss Marple, as a heroine, remarking on a woman as: “like any in her class, she will believe anything” . Or a young couple in desperate need for help because they have only a hundred pounds a year to themselves and they simply must inherit the old family Hall. While at the same time Christie speaks with disdain about unattractive and poor women of that indeterminate age over fourty, cast in roles as cook, seamstress or governess where they bother the hero and heroine by daring to ask them if they will be home so she should prepare dinner, yes or no. I remember a character cast as a sweet old forgetful man. Christie paints him so by ordering scrambled eggs for breakfast, then, when the eggs arrive, forgetting he ordered them and sending them back to the kitchen. Then after a while, scolding the servants for not bringing him the scrambled eggs he is waiting for. For the modern reader, there is nothing endearing about old Sir Alfred acting like that; we would say he is an asshole with early onset Alzheimer.
Were you an adult or a child when you tried them? To me, it seems a lot of kids are way less horrified by things that adults assume would be really terrible for them. Actually, things that didn’t bother me when I was a kid seem a lot more more horrifying to me as an adult.
Funny you should mention Agatha Christie. I was reading my way through them at the local library starting at age 8 or 9, until one day the librarian told me I couldn’t check them out because they were in the “adult” section. Mom wasn’t with me (we lived half a block from the library), so I ran home and got her. Mom then proceeded to lecture the librarian on censorship and tell her that I was to be allowed to read any book I wanted.
I read a ton of Agatha Christie when I was in 6th and 7th grade, and I don’t remember any of it being racy or inappropriate.
Hmm, I have pretty much all of the Agatha Christie books on my Kindle right now… I haven’t read any as an adult. Maybe I should give one of them a shot after I finish the book I’m reading now. It would be interesting to see how much different they are from an adult perspective.
I read lots of Agatha Christie starting at just a little older – I was about 12 years old. I loved them. I think they’d be perfectly fine for your child if he can read at that level.
Yep. Ran the library out of all the Nancy Drew AND Hardy Boys around age of 11; the Poirot stuff was next for me. I think it’s perfect for her.
When I was a kid, I loved reading adult books, and enjoyed the lack of cultural context very much. I loved soaking up the new context. You need to soak up the new context in good sf and fantasy, too, which is part of the fun.
But, as with Mark Twain, characters exhibiting that were the bad guys.
The Sherlock Holmes stories are full of wonderful female characters. Think of the Russian anarchist of “The Gold Pince-Nez”, the Veiled Lodger (“a poor circus girl brought up on the sawdust, and doing springs through the hoop before I was ten”), Helen Stoner of “The Speckled Band”, terrorized by her stepfather, but still able to get a referral to a good detective, find her way through London to consult him, and make arrangements about his fee.
They marry black men, flee organized-crime families to make a fresh start, travel the countryside by bicycle (alone!), give concerts he attends, and, of course, commit crimes so masterly that only Sherlock Holmes can solve them.
Ah, Irene Adler, star of 10,000 romantic Holmes fanfics…